Outbreak Company: Volume 13

by Ichiro Sakaki

  Hwhoooaaa!!

  “Just a second, Shinichi-kun.”

  “What?! You can’t!”

  But despite my objections, the blindfold went back on, and I lost my chance to see them changing. It wasn’t like they were stripping naked—what was the problem? But then again, when I thought about it, I realized I didn’t know what Elvia wore under her tube top, if it was anything at all; and I’d heard noble women didn’t necessarily wear anything under their outfits, so there was a chance Petralka didn’t, either... Maybe the blindfold was for the best.

  Still, robbed of my eyesight, I found myself focusing everything I had into my hearing. Every rustle of cloth seemed to come to me, and it was strangely erotic.

  At last...

  “Sorry for the wait, Shinichi-kun,” Minori-san said, taking the blindfold off again. The sight that greeted my eyes was—

  “U-Um, ahem...”

  Myusel, wearing Petralka’s clothes and blushing very hard.

  “Whoa...”

  Normally, I only ever saw Myusel in her maid uniform, or in the simple dress she wore when she went out, so the royal garments, flashing with gold and silver everywhere you looked, appeared fresh and new on her. But what really drew my attention was:

  “I guess... it is a little small... for me...”

  Yes: Petralka was petite. Besides which (although it would have been courting death to say so in front of her) she was as flat as a prepubescent girl. And needless to say, her clothing had been made to measure. Sooooo...

  Myusel shifted this way and that, trying to hold down the hem of the dress, which threatened to reveal not just her thighs but really, even her underwear. Half of her very soft-looking chest seemed about to spill out too, practically begging to escape.

  Sexy! It was so darned sexy you’d think she was doing it on purpose!

  The whole perspective—the way everything teased you, but was never quite visible—it was like a pulsing wellspring for the imagination...! And what was more—

  “Y- You’re not th’ only one who doesn’t quite fit...”

  Beside Myusel stood Elvia, wearing Myusel’s maid uniform. She looked a little uncomfortable, maybe because she wasn’t used to wearing a skirt. On top of that, when Elvia complained that it “didn’t quite fit,” she wasn’t talking about the hem of the dress...

  Myusel’s uniform was designed to expose the shoulders; in fact, it was pretty revealing, and now it seemed even more so—particularly the chest, which looked stretched about as far as it could go. It didn’t seem like it was going to spill out; if Elvia had taken her hand away, it would have burst out for all the world to see. The chest of the uniform looked like it might tear in half.

  “We have had quite enough of complaints about ‘small’!”

  I was distracted from glancing hopefully at Elvia’s chest by Petralka’s slightly desperate interjection. There was the empress, apparently trying to hide herself behind Myusel and Elvia. If Myusel was wearing Petralka’s clothes, and Elvia was wearing Myusel’s clothes, then Petralka, by process of elimination, had to be wearing Elvia’s clothes. And that meant...

  “Wh-What kind of clothes are these? We do not believe they can even be called clothes!” She looked at the end of her rope.

  The size? Not a good fit, naturally. But seeing Petralka stand there, bright red as she struggled to keep the tube top and pants from falling down, was darned adorable, like a kid who had gotten into her mom’s closet. And you know what? Kind of sexy, too. Her delicate shoulders, pale stomach, and slim thighs and calves were all on full display. She was desperately using her hands to keep her front covered, but her back and even her butt were exposed by the way the clothes were practically falling down. She might as well have been naked.

  “Oh...” Forgetting to pry my eyes away from Petralka’s figure, I noticed something where the pants were slipping off her rear end. A complicated pattern on her skin, almost like a tattoo. It was close to the color of her flesh, so it wasn’t very obvious, but with the rest of her flushed red, it stood out.

  That had to be the magical crest that was supposed to reflect any offensive spell that was used on her. Empresses were a popular target for assassinations, and she told me once that she had the tattoo to help keep her safe.

  “They are too real clothes!” Elvia objected. I’d seen her older sister Amatena, and Amatena’s subordinate Clara, wearing their civilian clothes before—it seemed like in Bahairam, where temperatures tended to be warmer, it was common for outfits to be more revealing.

  “We do not think so! We may as well be nak—”

  Her finger must have slipped, because at that moment, the tube top and the pants went sliding down Petralka’s thin body.

  Someone almost choked. Was it me, or her?

  Her delicate, willowy body, white as snow, was revealed. She was wearing some underwear on her lower half, I discovered, but there was nothing to hide the top. I know she looked totally flat with clothes on, but she was a girl, and now I could see the smallest of swells, topped by those sweet, cherry-pink—

  “We’ve got a reading!” Hikaru-san sounded like a radar operator watching for enemy vessels. “Shinichi-san is excited looking at Her Majesty!”

  “H-How could I not beeeee?!” I wrenched my eyes away from Petralka and wailed. What was he so surprised by?! I was a guy, after all!

  “Is that true, Hikaru?!”

  “Forget about him, Petralka, just get your clothes back!”

  Don’t look so thrilled, Your Majesty! Don’t go running over to Hikaru-san to look at the computer screen! Clothes first! I’m begging you, hide yourself!

  I seemed to remember a time I had accidentally wandered into the girls’ changing room when we were filming our own movie. As I recalled, Petralka hadn’t acted very embarrassed to be seen in her underwear. Maybe it was because she was so used to having servants around her as she changed—but she didn’t even seem to mind being naked. She acted a lot less concerned about having no clothes on than she did about the relative size (if you get my meaning—I’m being politic, here) of her bust and behind.

  Meanwhile...

  “Shinichi-sama?! Ain’tcha excited by me?!” Elvia flounced over to me, her chest heaving up and down. She bent right over into my face. Stop, wait, if you bend over like that—your chest—it’ll spill—I mean show—I mean agghhhh!

  “Everyone just put your own clothes back on!” I bellowed, my head spinning so fast I could hardly tell which way was up.

  “Seeing them all together like this... I must admit I’m intimidated,” Elder Zahar said, looking at the magical items sitting before us. There had, it seemed, been far more of the mind-control items lying dormant in the castle than we had realized: swords, daggers, shields, equipment, furnishings, pictures, sculptures, and more besides, all crammed in there together.

  Every one of these items had a story. Some were simply the products of some mad mage, but I dare say we didn’t even know when or how most of them were made. Some might even have come from ancient times, produced by magical civilizations now lost to us.

  “What’s this...?” My interest was drawn by several peculiar items sitting up against the wall. I hadn’t the foggiest idea what they were. Well, to be precise, I knew they were some form of mind-control device. But whereas many of the items took the form of weapons or mundane accessories, these looked different. They weren’t swords, bows, or spears, nor were they shaped like anything one might find around the house. If pressed, I might almost say they looked like statues, if very confusing ones.

  They were... lumps. Not too large to get your arms around, and seemingly made of steel. And there were five of them.

  “I am told these are suits of armor, sealed up here more than a century ago,” the witch-overseer informed me.

  “Armor? These?” I was used to armor looking roughly humanoid in shape, with gloves or greaves or other pieces that would obviously fit on a human body. But here, I saw none of that. The shapes themselves seemed uns
uited to anything resembling a human. Perhaps the armor had simply been folded up when it was put away here, and might unfold into more human forms—but even if so, everything about the suits was so confusing that I felt I wouldn’t know which parts of the armor corresponded to which parts of the body.

  “Everything else here seems more or less comprehensible, but these...” These smelled fishy. What’s more, close inspection revealed some kind of writing on them. I couldn’t decipher what it said. Not knowing what might happen if I touched the armor, I resisted the urge to feel out the characters, or to try to wipe away some of the dust. “How in the world is it used?”

  “I’m afraid the details of their workings and use are, at the moment, unclear to us...” The witch trailed off apologetically. “However, the records allege that this is cursed armor that once destroyed an entire town.”

  “Terrible...”

  The ability to wipe out an entire town, even if one supposed it had not been a very large one, was nothing to sneeze at. Of course, stories could easily attach themselves to artifacts this old, myths and tales that shouldn’t be believed at face value. But I took it as a reminder not to act carelessly with something so potentially dangerous. Some of these items could control a person merely by existing.

  “Lauron,” I said.

  “Yes, sir, the puppeteer girl replied in a flat tone.

  “Remove these for the time being—no, return them to their boxes.”

  “Return them, sir?” She seemed to wonder why we were putting them away immediately after having gone to the effort of getting them out. Perhaps it seemed to her as pointless as digging a hole only to fill it in.

  “There’s someone I wish to consult with. And I need these in a form that can be easily transported to his mansion.”

  “Yes, sir.” The dwarf girl nodded, still expressionless, and obediently began to pack the armor away.

  Dinner was even more opulent than usual.

  “Whoa...”

  The number of plates and variety of dishes was staggering. The quantity alone would have left me speechless.

  It was all because Petralka was still there, having sworn she wouldn’t go home until things had been settled. And with the empress around, Myusel naturally felt compelled to pull out all the stops for dinner. She might be battling the empress for my heart (wow, can’t believe I’m saying that!), but in every other respect, Petralka’s position demanded the utmost care and consideration from Myusel.

  And so, in addition to the usual suspects—myself, Myusel, Elvia, Minori-san, Hikaru-san, Brooke, and Cerise-san—Petralka joined us for dinner, along with four of her maids (read: bodyguards). Dinner was going to be lively, to say the least.

  “Good heavens...!” Petralka was looking at the plate she had just eaten from, her hand shaking.

  “Your Majesty?!” one of her maids exclaimed.

  “I knew I should have tasted it for poison...!” another said. But Petralka seemed more annoyed than anything by their chatter.

  “Let us eat in peace! But good heavens, this flavor...”

  “You mean ‘Talk about a rich taste without the richness overwhelming the rest of the flavor profile’?”

  “Mm, ‘a deep flavor but with an edge...’ No, that is not what we meant!” Petralka reflexively picked up my otaku-ish quote, but quickly backpedaled. “Yes, it is indeed delicious, but we have a different question. Is this not... you know, that thing we ate in Ja-pan?”

  “Huh? Oh—Oh! Yakiniku?” I said, referring to a Japanese style of grilled meat.

  “Yes, that!” Petralka said, leveling an excited finger at me. She had just eaten a small-cut piece of meat. Eldant cooking tended to favor simple preparations, with just a light dusting of salt and spices before cooking, but this had been marinated. Come to think of it, back when we’d had dinner at my house, Petralka had seemed uncommonly impressed by simple yakiniku. I guess she didn’t taste a lot of rich flavors like that, and it was still novel for her. Plus, as the conversation with her maids made clear, Petralka normally only got to eat after a taster had checked her food for poison—which maybe meant she had limited experience with warm, freshly cooked food. She was just like the daimyo in The Sanma of Meguro.

  “Did you indeed make this, Myusel?” Petralka asked, her eyes wide.

  Myusel stopped eating for a moment. She looked embarrassed to be complimented. “Y-Yes, ma’am. Oh, but I had help from Cerise-san...” She looked over at our other maid—Cerise.

  Specifically, Cerise Darwin. Wife of Brooke Darwin, our gardener. Neither of them was, well, human. Both came from a tribe of demi-humans called lizardmen, and they really did look like bipedal reptiles. When I first met them, something about them (maybe it was the scales) made it hard to read their expressions. Sometimes they had even freaked me out, and I had worried that I might not ever really get to know them, but now we had all largely come to understand each other, and I was even getting more adept at reading their faces.

  “No, we are referring to the additional flavor. Did you not add it yourself?”

  “That’s true. Just as you suppose, Your Majesty, it was my humble attempt to re-create the ‘yaki-niku’ spices I received at Shinichi-sama’s house. Several of the ingredients were hard to obtain, so I had to use local substitutes...”

  “Goodness...” Petralka said, maybe more impressed than she needed to be.

  Needless to say, there was no such thing as “yakiniku sauce” here. So if you didn’t specifically import it, then you would have to try to get together a similar set of herbs and spices to get a similar flavor. Come to think of it, hadn’t I heard that pepper was worth more than gold in Middle-Ages Europe? A surprisingly large number of spices, be it chili oil or soy sauce, had unique flavors.

  “You must have exerted yourself considerably. And not on this dish alone...”

  “Actually, I was preparing dinner before you arrived, Your Majesty, so that one didn’t take all that much effort.”

  Well, I guess it was just a matter of grilling it, although you had to keep an eye on it while it was cooking.

  “Yet with so many dishes, to have them all come out warm...”

  “Cerise-san was kind enough to keep an eye on the temperature of each dish,” Myusel said.

  Brooke and Cerise tended to eat their vegetables and meat more or less raw—but that wasn’t the product of any kind of discrimination towards them on our part. They just preferred things that weren’t as cooked. But in any case, lizardmen had the ability to detect the infrared spectrum, similar to how what we called pit organs worked in our world. They were like nature’s infrared goggles, and lizardmen could get a sense of how hot something was just by looking at it.

  “Indeed? So it was made possible with the help of your lizardman there—Cerise, is that what you said her name is? A fine display.”

  “Your words honor us, Your Majesty.”

  “You needn’t be so kind, Majesty...”

  Myusel and Cerise both bowed. Cerise in particular was probably a little bit taken aback, for she had never heard the empress speak her name before. I didn’t think anyone else had noticed, but I saw her tail wrap gently around Brooke’s beneath the table.

  Is that, like... the way humans would hold hands?

  “Ahh. It is not just your ya-ki-ni-ku. It’s this—and this—! All of them imbued with the most wonderful flavors.” Petralka pulled from one novel dish after another. Her maid-guards had given up warning her about poison and had begun to eat from their own plates; by the way they kept looking at each other, I figured the flavors must have surprised them, too.

  Yes, Myusel was a top-notch chef. She was so good at it that you would never have thought she was self-taught—she must have had some sort of inborn talent for taste. Did it have to do with her elvish blood? Or was it just something special about Myusel herself? I didn’t know.

  “Complex though this flavor is, one does not tire of it,” Petralka remarked. “And to think, you know Shinichi’s preferences as w
ell. Hmm. Perhaps we were mistaken to challenge you to a bento contest. In retrospect, we were wrong to have the royal chef beaten as we did.”

  “Wait, what?” I could hardly believe my ears.

  Beaten? I mean... Sure, you wouldn’t normally expect the castle’s own chef to be bested at cooking by a simple maid, so maybe Petralka had assumed he’d been pulling his punches. But to be ordered to make an unfamiliar thing like a “lunchbox,” to give it your best shot, and then to be beaten when you did it... I didn’t know his name or what he looked like, but I felt awfully bad for that chef. I wondered if he had even realized he had been making that bento for a contest...

  “Speaking of,” I said, reminded of a question I’d had. “What brought on that sudden interest in bento boxes?”

  I knew it was a trope in romance manga and anime and games and stuff for the girl to give a lunchbox to the boy she liked. A heart-pounding trope! And a lunchbox from Myusel was one thing, but for Petralka to suddenly pop up with a bento in her hands was just out of the blue. I assumed that when the empress went out to eat, she brought the ingredients, the utensils, and the chef with her, and had the meal whipped up wherever she was. I wasn’t sure she would even have thought of preparing a lunchbox and taking it with her on her own.

  “Matoba said, did he not?”

  There was a name I hadn’t expected to hear. What did Matoba-san have to do with this?

  “He remarked that a man has three ‘bags,’ and the way to his heart is through the one in his stomach.”

  “The way to— What is he, some old guy giving a toast at someone’s wedding?!”

  Well, I guess whatever else he was, Matoba-san was an old dude. Still, this made it obvious that he had been coaching Petralka since before the boxed-lunch incident. I remembered how he had told me during Rubert’s visit that it was important for Amutech’s activities that I, Kanou Shinichi, secure the empress’s affections. When he found out that Petralka had feelings for me, I should have known he might try to put some ideas into her head. It would have been a lot more in-character than standing calmly by to see what happened.